UNIVERSITY OF KENT

CRIME, CULTURE, CONTROL

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VAN HIEU NGUYEN STUDENT NUMBER: 11955293 SEMINAR LEADER: HANNAH THURSTON

The relationship between culture and crime has been studied for long time as the culture has changed and varied throughout the history. However, the connection between crime and culture is not yet clear, as culture may not create crime in general. Culture is, by definition, a collection of ideologies as well as an integration of belief and knowledge. In other words, we can see culture as the way we live our lives, on the standards of the society in which we live. Being said that, not everyone like to live the way others do. People who belong to a subculture do not behave the same way the society does in some circumstances. Their behaviours are sometimes deviances, alternative solutions to some certain problems and are out of any social norm boundary1. Another reason for people to commit crime is the status frustration, defined and studied by Albert Cohen. Young people have a tendency to seek violence and vandalism to satisfy their need for what they lack of in life such as respect, money or even a way to express anger. Nevertheless, culture and subculture do not evolve themselves, but follow the changes of human knowledge. The effect of culture on people always includes violence, unavoidably. Children learn about violence in various ways: fairy tales, books, TV programs, videogames or even history lessons at school. Bullying is also a way to spread the knowledge of violence at school. Parents seem to be frustrated in finding any other efficient way to keep their children away from the effect of violence culture than putting children lock on some TV channels. Unless audience stop seeking for media violence, there is no reason for producers to stop making action movies and shooting games2. Violence and crime have become parts of the society through media. This essay will discuss the effect of media on people to reveal the nature of the connection between culture and crime.

Videogame may be the first thing parents mention when it comes to explain why kids behave violently. Despite the fact that playing videogames is defined as an activity aims to release stress, most people disagree with that definition strongly because of the hidden addictive properties of videogames. Videogames nowadays are not some short entertaining computer software which could be finished in 30 minutes like those 20 years ago. There is literally no limit of playing time for
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Ferrel, J., Hayward, K., Young, J., 2008, p.34.

Trend, D., 2007, p.109.

players to discover a whole game. The creation of the Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game or MMORPG in 1997 was a significant milestone in the development of the social dilemma of game addiction, when there is no ending in an MMORPG. The potential of the MMO-games is too good to be ignored. Players can not only play role playing games online but also shooting, strategy, stimulation, sport or even puzzle games online, with millions of other players. Moreover, gaming device nowadays includes not only personal computer but also Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii, all equipped the ability to connect to the internet and play online games similar to a computer. In addition, Sony has the PlayStation Portable and Nintendo dominates the market with Nintendo DS so it can be said that people can play games anywhere, from home to school and office, 24/7. A statistic by Online Education3 (2010) shows that 65% of US households play videogames, in which 26% are children under 18 and 49% are people from 18 to 49 years old. It can be seen that videogames are highly addictive, not only because of the abusing players but also because they are created addictive.

From those properties, there seems to be more social concerns are raised by the popularity of videogames. Players spend significantly less time for family, outdoor and real socializing activities when addicted, causing social isolation because of the lacking in-person contact with others, according to Dr. Brent Conrad4. Social issues together with emotional problems are believed to play big roles in the creation of crime. The social anxiety, depression and loneliness are likely to have on addictive players, also embarrassment and anger caused by some troubles of the misplaying. An anonymous quote which states: Video games dont cause violence. Lag does! gives a clue of the violence origin caused by video games. The extreme of gaming addiction results in serious disorders in human emotion and character and can be the potential criminal threat. Referring back to the status frustration, gaming pressure does act as an addition to everyday stress of many people, especially children and teenagers who are not fully trained on emotion control. The pressure is brought home from school usually got released by video games
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Videogame Statistics (Infographics), Online Education, http://www.onlineeducation.net/videogame. Conrad, B., 2011, Why are Video Games Addictive?

because parents are mostly not helping or unable to help, children may find themselves in a situation in which they try to relax or at least think playing video games will help releasing stress but it turns out to be more stressful and make them more aggressive. One point should be noticed here, that the overpressure causes aggression at first, not violence. As distinguished by Anderson and Bushman, aggressive acts are not violence if they do not result in extreme harms. Take Counter Strike, the most played shooting game in the world, as an example: the game is filled with extremely intense shooting experience, covered by wide range of usable weaponries from knife to machine guns. The game has no story at all, the target is to cooperate with other players to eliminate another team and prevent them from planting a bomb. The game delivers no more than violent images, endless gun fights and the motivation of destruction. It is very cheap or can be downloaded free from the internet; anyone can play the game, as Counter-Terrorists (also called police) or Terrorists team. There is no arresting, interrogating or even negotiating option, the mission of the Counter-Terrorists team is simplified to just take-down and eliminate the bombing threat, while the target of the Terrorists team is the same to the most common terrorism, planting bombs and kill the authorities. There are reports of some murders which Counter Strike was the main motivation. In 2010, a game-addict Romanian teenager stabbed his adoptive mother 17 times for not refusing to pay the internet bills, he was addicted to Counter Strike, stayed at home all the time and refused to go out with friends or go to school 5. Another Counter Strike related murder attempt in 2010 was by Julien Barreaux, a 20-year-old French. He attacked and nearly killed another player after six months of tracking down the victim, just because that player killed Juliens character in a Counter Strike matches6. This case seems even more extreme, somewhat ludicrous, due to the amount of time the French man spent just to find out who killed his virtual character. However, those are just 2 in hundreds of reported murders or attacks reported around the world which involved video games.

Gaming addict kills mother then plays Counter-Strike, 2010, http://www.allaboutthegames.co.uk/feature_story.php? article_id=10101.
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Sheridan, M., 2010.

Video games affect players psychologically, which is merely one of the most common properties of violent entertaining material, embraces the aggression by violent but stylish imageries but delivers wrong ideas about realism. Young players may develop unintentionally an idea of free will killing because in most of the games they play, killing is always the first priority. In some ways, violence to some seems like the only way to satisfy their desire or they simply think it is acceptable or even cool to act like that (American Psychiatric Association (APA)7). Surprisingly, though the aggressive behaviors do increase relatively with the amount of video games played, statistics show that crime level does not raise whatsoever. A research conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research in Mannheim8 delivered an interesting result in which the amount of criminal incidents and video game sales are negatively related. Using the murder and robbery records from the FBI, the research pointed out a decrease of crime levels along with the rise of the video game industry. The research concluded the effect of making players stay inside does have impact on reducing the crime rates, despite still making those players more aggressive and more likely to commit serious crimes in the future.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2006, Children and Video Games: Playing with Violence, http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_video_games_playing_with_violence.
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Sharkey, M., 2011.

The graph shows the crime rates reduction from 2000-2010, can be explained partly by the increasing of video games popularity9.

Unlike video games, the cinema and television bring a whole different perspective of the culturecrime relationship. This part of the essay will not solely talk about the effect on the change in human nature but also about the portraits of crime in movies and TV shows.

It can be said that there are countless number of crime/thriller movies have been made. Ideas seem to come from everyday news, it is not very difficult to pick up a murder case and make a movie based on the story. Crime movies and TV shows are also a tool to bring the images of the police force to audiences. From the success of the Ealing Studio with The Blue Lamp (1950) to the popularity of The Wire (2002-2008) or the CSI-series (2000-present) and many more with a wide range of story and genre.

The Blue Lamp represented the 50s-60s popular culture, displayed the iconic image of the English bobby and told the mainstream moral story of the good-cop lives together with the extraordinary life of the young cop-killer Tom Riley (Dirk Bogarde). The movie successfully delivered the story of the English bobby, how they deal with the criminals while remain a faithful, incorruptible public servant10. Tom Riley was also an iconic criminal. Pictured as a criminal who transforms continuously from a cheap robber to an armed momentous murder, Tom Riley was a real challenge to the unarmed police constable George Dixon. The movie presented the image of London police force or bobby, unarmed police constables who only have the authority on their side while Tom Riley11, the criminal has many appearances but also is an image of youth subculture. Tom Riley also represented the one of the biggest challenges that many police forces
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Sharkey, M., 2011 McLaughlin, E., 2005, p.12. McLaughlin, E., 2005, p.21.

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have to face: young and subcultural criminal, happy trigger finger; while the police force is so vulnerable but dedicating and motivated by the pursuit of justice, not by vengeance.

As the society proceeds to higher level, crimes become more complex. The police force needs better technology and skilled investigators rather than some unarmed PCs wandering around the street. CSI- Crime Scene Investigation is a famous American TV drama which goes deeply into forensic investigation. The drama was initially called CSI, successfully gained the popularity not only in the US but also around the world, then 2 spin-offs were produced called CSI: Miami and CSI:NY. The show follows forensic investigation teams whose works are mostly investigating the crime scenes to track down the criminal in Las Vegas, Miami and New York. They are hardly play a role of stopping crime at the beginning but their results are the most important to catch the killers and stop another crime. Surely the idea of fighting crime in the laboratory brings the new view to the audiences; crime is not only fought on the street. Also, the crime in the show is very diverse. People are not only killed unintentionally, some cases the crime is well planned and is a big challenge to the CSI teams. Crime comes in many types in CSI, not just the ordinary images of robbers who kill because the victim fights back, but also a professional killer, sometimes works on a contract or vengeance, sometimes they kill because they are exposed for doing an illegitimate activity. The CSI teams are also not police officers in lab-coats, there are investigators who work in the crime scenes, who collect information from witnesses and related sources, then combine the information with the laboratory results to find the killer. For example Nick Stokes from the original CSI, a dedicating police man who works with his heart though the impression of him is more likely to be full of action, masculinity and emotionless crime execution. Or Lieutenant Horatio Caine from the CSI: Miami spin-off impresses audiences with the permanent calm look, unparalleled skills and the iconic put-on-sunglasses gestures and conclude-the-crime-scene line. The show follows the popular motif of a crime drama, in which justice always prevails in the end and the criminal gets arrested or executed, and is packed with a variety of cases, intriguing forensic techniques and memorable characters and hence the wide popularity it gained after more than 10 years on air.

Crime may come in many types in motion pictures, from homicide to bank robbery to fraud. Although a large amount of crime movies involve homicide, the less violent genre earns its popularity thanks to the intelligent story and the more organized crime. Unlike homicide movies, mostly exploits the brutal killings and psychopathic violence to attract audiences, movies like The Shawshank Redemption (1994) or Catch Me If You Can (2002) were a breakthrough when deliver less run-and-gun moments and more brain teasing and unpredictable plot twists involving stealing money indirectly through paper works. The criminal described in those movies are good-class villains, experience and challenging, as well as challengers, who have the ability to hurt any police mans brain with their tricks12. The crime they commit is called white-collar crime13 so it can be said that what they do is lying and cheating to steal money, no one gets hurt, physically. Sometimes, combine this with some action, homicide and some organized crime-material and The Oceans Eleven (2001) was created, or Inside Man (2006). Some movies turn into a very interesting track, where the police have to acquire helps from the villains to track down another one like the famous series of Hannibal Lecter which had an impressive debut of The Silence of the Lambs (1991). The police force in those movies cannot rely entirely on the forensic techniques but also on the experience of a sophisticated professional villain who understands others criminals better (Hannibal Lecter in this case). Exceptionally, the underworld forces, the gangsters are invulnerable to the police due to the dramatically large scale of organization and they exist without any fear for the authorities, as their stories made it to the big screen like The Untouchable (1987) and the legendary The Godfather series (1972-1990). Crime and culture have been living alongside each other since the dawn of the modern human. Though preventing crime and violence in culture products is impossible, the function of delivering the idea of the diversity of crime to audiences remains notable. Parents may try to keep their children away from crime or violence by blocking TV channels or learn more about the game rating systems (ESRB, Pegi); the idea of violence will find its way to everybody eventually. Homicide is
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Reiner, R., 2000, p.93-94. Maguire, M., Morgan, R., Reiner, R., 2007, chapter 22, p.733-769.

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the most common type of crime reported14; everyone can see it on the news practically everyday. There is no reason for crime and culture to be unrelated, the media for example is a proof. However, there are still needs for more deep studies to clarify clearly the relationship between crime and culture.

Word Count: 2594

Bibliography: Bryce, J. & Rutter, J., 2006, Understanding Digital Games, Sage, London. Conrad, B., 2011, Why are Video Games Addictive?, Tech Addiction, http://www.techaddiction.ca/why_are_video_games_addictive.html. Cunningham, S., Engelsttter, B., Ward, M., 2011, Understanding the Effects of Violent Video Games on Violent Crime, Baylor University, Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) & University of Texas at Arlington. Ferrel, J., Hayward, K., Young, J., 2008, Cultural Criminology: An Invitation, Sage, London. Gaming addict kills mother then plays Counter-Strike, 2010, http://www.allaboutthegames.co.uk/feature_story.php?article_id=10101.

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Reiner, R., 2007, p.384.

Gentile, D. et al., 2004, The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviours, and school performance, Journal of Adolescence, Academic Press, http:/www.sciencedirect.com. Leitch, T., 2002, Crime Films, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Maguire, M., Morgan, R., Reiner, R., 2007, The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, Clarendon Press, Oxford. McLaughlin, E., 2005, From reel to ideal: The Blue Lamp and the popular cultural construction of the English bobby., Sage, London. Media Violence and Behavior, http://www.limitv.org/aggression.htm. Reiner, R., 2007, Media made criminality: The representation of crime in the mass media, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Reiner, R., 2000, The Politics of the Police, 3rd Edition, Oxford University Press, Oxford. Sharkey, M., 2011, Violent Video Games Linked to Decrease in Violent Crimes in U.S., Gamespy UK, http://uk.gamespy.com/articles/117/1178004p1.html. Sheridan, M., 2010, Video gamer hunts down, stabs man who killed his online 'CounterStrike' character, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/video-gamer-hunts-stabs-man-killedonline-counter-strike-character-article-1.447608. Shin, G., 2008, Video Games: A Cause of Violence and Aggression, Biology 202, http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1723. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2006, Children and Video Games: Playing with Violence, http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/facts_for_families/children_and_video_games_playing_with_violence. Trend, D., 2007, The Myth of Media Violence: A Critical Introduction, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford.

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Young, J., 2002, Crime and Social Exclusion, http://www.malcolmread.co.uk/JockYoung/crime&socialexclusion.htm. Young, J., 1981, THINKING SERIOUSLY ABOUT CRIME: Some models of Criminology, http://www.malcolmread.co.uk/JockYoung/tsac_v_2003.pdf. Videogame Statistics (Infographics), 2010, Online Education, http://www.onlineeducation.net/videogame. Movie information from: http://www.imdb.com

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